


Ribbons

by LucyLovecraft



Series: Flowers & Tattoos [2]
Category: Ogniem i Mieczem | With Fire and Sword (1999), Trylogia | The Trilogy - Henryk Sienkiewicz
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Florists, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tattoos, VIP: Burłaj's Quality Christmas Moonshine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 03:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyLovecraft/pseuds/LucyLovecraft
Summary: It's Christmas Eve at the flower shop, and Jurko Bohun has never believed in Christmas miracles. Miracles don't happen to Jurko Bohun.But they do happen to Jan Skrzetuski.





	Ribbons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bachaboska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bachaboska/gifts).



> This continues the [previous Yuletide flower shop/tattoo parlour fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946802).
> 
> This is a little late for Christmas Eve (and it's still a tad rushed), but hey, we're technically only on the fourth day of Christmas, right?
> 
> But seriously, let me know in the comments if you guys spot any typos. It was either post this now or post it in 2019, so I erred on the side of now!

_Fuck._ Jurko summed up his feelings with elegant succinctness: _Fuck. I am so fucked._

He took one last, despairing look at the bouquet standing on the table in front of him.

“And fuck you,” he said, addressing the flowers. Then he slumped over the table and hid his face in his folded arms.

He knew it didn’t mean anything, of course. But the problem was that he knew exactly what it _could_ mean.

Roses meant love. That was obvious. Even Bohun knew that. And Jan had never sent him roses.

 _But,_ he had thought, on the occasion of his first gift of flowers from Jan Skrzetuski, _maybe other flowers mean things, too._

So Bohun had looked it up:

_Tulips (red): Declaration of love_

_Tulips (yellow): Hopeless love_

He’d stared at the computer screen, then back at the flowers, heart pounding.

The next day he’d asked. Because of course he had asked.

“Hey, you know that hangover bouquet you gave me?” He’d shouted the question while Jan was bustling around in the back of the shop. He never would have been brave enough to ask face-to-face, not when he could feel himself burning with obstinate, idiot hope. “Did that have any flowers that mean stuff? Some flowers mean things, don’t they? What do tulips mean?”

“They do. I’m… well, I’m impressed you know that.” Jan had shouted back. “But when you thought I was a cop, you asked me if my passion was ‘goddam tulips’. I thought it would be funny.”

There was a pause in which Bohun’s heart broke and Jan added: “Lame joke, honestly.”

_What did you think? What did you fucking think? Did you think this was a fucking fairy tale, you dumb fuck? It was just goddam flowers. He was just being the way he is: beautiful, and too perfect for you to be this goddam close to him without heartbreak, without it hurting. It’s like looking into the goddam sun and Jesus fucking Christ I’m gonna go blind. And when you found out he was ex-military you made fun of him for his PTSD like the dumb piece of shit you are._

“Yeah,” Bohun called. “I did say that. Shit, sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it. Seriously: it’s okay.”

Bohun tried to force his voice to something close to normal. He couldn’t risk Jan seeing him like this, with all his armour still stripped away.

“So I don’t need to worry about coded messages telling me I’m an asshole? Even if I acted like one?”

“You?” From the way he said it, Bohun knew Jan was smiling. “Never.”

That hadn’t stopped Bohun from looking every flower of every bouquet up—all the ones he could recognise, at any rate.

He’d never thought something as innocent as flowers could turn his world upside down. But then, he’d never thought he would meet anyone whose smile could turn his heart to molten gold.

 

Objectively, he was fairly certain he was going mad, and the proof was in this new bouquet.

 

He raised his head from his the table and regarded the festive arrangement. With a sigh, he plucked out a sprig of the offending flora, holding it between finger and thumb, the better to contemplate his misery.

_For fuck’s sake, I didn’t even need to look it up._

Though had looked it up, of course:

_Mistletoe: ‘Kiss me’, affection, surmounting difficulties_

“‘Kiss me’,” Bohun groaned. “It means ‘kiss me’!”

Then disgust and rage wrested control: “No, no it doesn’t! God, it’s just a fucking plant. It’s just a fucking plant, asshole! But—oh, for fuck’s sake, I can’t do this!”

He threw the offending sprig from him.

The mistletoe landed on the floor with the merest whisper of rustling leaves. For some reason this angered Bohun. Maybe he’d feel better if he threw a few metal trays around, something that would match the noise and chaos in his head. Maybe he could smash some chairs. Maybe he should get a drink.

Rising with a snarl, Bohun took one step towards the back room. But before he took a second step he froze, looking back at the mistletoe. He wavered. Then he rushed to where it had fallen. With every sign of remorse, Bohun scooped up the mistletoe in his cupped hands. Eyes closed, he slowly raised it and pressed it ardently to his lips. At which point he wondered if mistletoe was poisonous.

Perhaps it was, he thought optimistically. Then he’d get to die, clutching Jan’s gift in his hands.

But, when he did not show any signs of dying on the spot, Bohun placed the mistletoe very carefully back into the bouquet.

He hadn’t needed to come in to the parlour today. Nobody got goddam tattoos on Christmas Eve. But Jan had let slip that he had a huge last-minute order for some desperately disorganised church, so _of course_ Jan had agreed to the order, even if it meant working later than Bob Cratchit.

“It’s no big deal,” Jan said, shrugging, and Bohun knew that was a lie.

Bohun’s loving heart couldn’t bear the idea of Jan, alone on Christmas Eve, eating greasy delivery food in the back of his shop.

So he’d told Jan he would come over and bring a bit of food and something to drink.

Jan had protested. Jan had insisted that Bohun ought to be out having fun on Christmas Eve. And, in the face of Bohun’s dogged refusal to change his mind, he had weakly insisted that Bohun not go overboard.

Bohun had, in a sense, obeyed. He was limited to what he could cook on the little gas range that he had in the back for when the guys needed someplace to lie low for a bit. But Bohun had learned to cook in adversity, and he’d poured all his heart into the task.

He had also armed himself with a _beverage_ of Burłaj’s distillation. It might have conceivably been schnapps. It might, with equal probability, have been pure ethanol rendered more festive by the addition of peppermint flavouring.

Belatedly, Bohun had realised that wine would have been more appropriate. But whatever Burłaj’s drink was (“liquor” seemed over-generous), it suited Bohun’s mood.

 _All I want for Christmas is you,_ Bohun thought gloomily, pushing open the flower shop door. _If I can’t have that, being blackout drunk would be really fucking nice._

The familiar bell rang out as he entered.

“Jurko?” Jan’s voice emanated from somewhere in the back room.

_Fucking hell, I would rise from my goddam grave, if only he said my name like that._

“Hey, Merry Christmas. I brought food,” he called. “And… schnapps, I think.”

Jan appeared framed in the doorway, an improbably large length of wide, glittery ribbon slung in a coil over his shoulder like a Yuletide mountaineer.

“You know,” Jan said, “given some of the booze you’ve brought over, I’m _really_ worried about that ‘I think’.”

_Oh Christ, it’s like I forget how fucking beautiful he is each time._

Jurko, not quite equal to responding with words, mutely held out the bag of food.

“It’s good to see you,” Jan beamed, stepping to him and taking it from Bohun’s hand.

With despair, Bohun noted that there was a starcape scattering of glitter across Jan’s cheek.

 _“Wow.”_ Jan peered at the stacked tupperware containers, all fresh and fogged with heat. “This is a feast, Jurko! You really didn’t have to do all this.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Jurko said defensively.

“Yeah,” Jan said, with a warmth that pierced Bohun’s heart. “And I don’t have to spend it alone. Thank you. Truly. It means… it means a lot to me.”

Before Bohun could brace himself, Jan had put down the bag and pulled Bohun into a hug that nearly caused Bohun's poor heart to stop and his soul to fly his body in order that it might be just that bit closer to Jan's before slipping into eternity. Or maybe he'd just melt. Bohun hadn't really decided which. If Jan kept hugging him, he might do both.

Bohun still had the bottle clutched, idiotically, in one hand, and that alone saved him. That stupid, awful bottle of booze, which kept him from pulling Jan closer still and never, ever letting go. Burłaj had always told him be careful. He had always told him that love would be the death of him, and God, it was true, but Jurko wanted to die like this.

“Merry Christmas,” he heard Jan say.

Bohun’s hand was between Jan’s shoulder blades, but he didn’t dare press too hard: Jan would surely feel how violently his it shook.

“Merry Christmas,” Bohun whispered.

Jan released him, bending quickly to pick up the bag of food. Bereft, Bohun could only stand there, trying to remember how breathing worked and not entirely succeeding.

“Well, let’s eat before this wonderful dinner you’ve made gets cold!” Jan's voice was briskly bright, as though he hadn’t just shaken the foundations of Bohun’s universe.

Bohun nodded, hoping Jan couldn’t hear his heart beating, and trailed Jan into the back room.

“Do we need to put that on ice or something?” Jan asked, indicating the bottle.

“Might make it go down smoother,” Bohun said doubtfully.

 

It did.

 

“Oh my God,” Jan said, tears of laughter running down his face. “You are _so_ drunk. And you’re lying.”

“I'm not!” Bohun protested. Then, specifying: “I'm not lying!”

Jan’s arm was around his shoulder. He leaned into the contact, glowing and electric where his body pressed against Jan's.

“You actually did it?”

“You think I wouldn’t?” Bohun couldn't seem to stop smiling. His face hurt, but everything was so absolutely, perfectly… perfectly perfect.

 _Because he's perfection,_ Bohun thought happily.

“Come on, Jurko, you are in a _gang!_ ”

“I lost a bet!”

“But you are in a gang!” Jan insisted, practically sobbing with laughter. “You probably… you probably shake people down! Sell drugs! Run stop signs! You don’t—you don’t—”

“Lose bets?’ Bohun prompted, grinning. This was Heaven. Slightly more pepperminty, more… spinny, than any theologians had probably theorised. But the crusty old bastards had never seen Jan Skrzetuski smile.

“You do not,” Jan said definitively, “sing shitty Christmas songs while table-dancing for an entire gang of goddam criminals.”

“Wanna bet?” Reckless and delighted, Bohun felt himself seized by an excellent idea. He stood up, lost his balance, found his balance, then put one foot up on the cutting table.

“Oh my God,” Jan whispered.

“I have a good singing voice,” Bohun explained, explaining absolutely no part of what he was about to do.

“I know you do, but—”

That was all the encouragement Bohun would have needed, had any been lacking. He heaved himself up onto the table, then swayed so alarmingly that Jan’s heart leapt to his throat. Yet when Bohun didn’t immediately fall, Jan hastily swept the dishes to the far side of the table, out from under Bohun’s boots.

“Jurko! What are you doing?”

The room was a pleasant blur of poinsettias and artful holly garlands with Jan at its centre, and everything was so wonderful in that moment that the words of the song seemed imbued with meaning, with a transcendent _truth_ , as profound as anything Bohun had ever uttered. He was, after all, very drunk. 

 _“I don’t want a lot for Christmas,”_ he sang. The radio was warbling other Christmas tunes, but Bohun drowned them out with ease. _“There’s just one thing I need.”_

“Jurko, no!” Jan protested, without much conviction.

_“I don’t care about the presents, underneath the Christmas tree.”_

Jan wasn’t taking his eyes off him and if Bohun hadn’t been drunk before, that alone would have sufficed to make the world into a dreamy, golden haze (though the schnapps certainly helped). Bohun knew he sang well, even when shitfaced, and now he was going to make sure Jan never, ever looked away. All the shadowy whispers that haunted him had long since been drowned, and the warm flush on Jan’s cheeks and the absurd dusting of glitter in his hair had banished even their memory from Bohun’s mind.

_“I just want you for my own,”_

Jan hadn’t looked away. He hadn’t looked away at all. He hadn’t laughed, or moved, or done anything other than gaze up at Bohun with his eyes wide, his mouth half-open, hands holding tight to the side of his chair.

_“More than you could ever know,”_

“This isn’t happening,” Jan told him.

 _“Make my wish come true—”_ And Bohun set that last word rising, rising in a perfect, lilting, drawn-out note that ended in something like a sigh. Mariah would have been so proud.

Jan tossed back the booze left in his glass like it was water. Then he joined in:

_“All I want for Christmas is you.”_

At which point Bohun started to _really_ sing. And to dance.

Jan was still singing along, and his eyes were sparkling, and Bohun felt so happy that he felt he could have put out his feet and danced on air.

That, perhaps, was not an entirely rational thought.

Bohun managed to keep dancing all the way through to the next verses, then nearly careened sideways off the table. Jan reached up and caught his hands, steadying him, gasping for breath as he laughed while Bohun assured him, very genuinely, that he, Jurko Bohun, was not intending to ask for much this Christmas. Nor, it transpired, would Jurko even ask for snow. He would, in fact, _(for you, for you, Jan)_ be waiting under the mistletoe.

“You’re crazy!”

Bohun grinned.

_“I just want you for my own—”_

And there! There was that stupid, cheesy ribbon Jan had been using, set to one side. Giddy from more than drink, Bohun snatched it up, nearly toppling off the table again in the effort, but never missing a note.

Bohun didn’t quite get the ribbon around Jan’s shoulders on the first try. But when he dropped to his knees on the tabletop, bringing Jan within a foot of himself, he managed it on the second try. Jan was still laughing, but then Bohun tugged on the ribbon, pulling him closer.

_“More than you could ever know—”_

Jan’s smile had frozen strangely on his face.

 _“Make my wish come true,”_ Bohun tossed another loop of ribbon over Jan’s shoulders, wanting to make him laugh again. “ _All I want for Christmas is you.”_

“Jurko?” Jan said.

“Yeah?” Bohun paused. He frowned. The magic was slipping from the moment and the odd look in Jan’s eyes had not gone away. It had deepened, and Bohun did not know what it meant. He only knew that Jan wasn’t smiling.

“That was…” Then Jan shook himself, seeming to have warded off some of whatever had seized him. His mouth curved up, but it was too brittle to be a smile. “Damn, Jurko,” he said, “for a macho gang guy, that was the gayest thing I’ve ever seen.”

The words struck Bohun like ice water, so wholly unexpected that for a moment he could hardly find a reason for the pain.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, Jurko. It was just a joke, okay?” Jan was pulling away, and Bohun’s world canted sickeningly on its axis. “Don’t be upset, it was—I was—I only meant—I know you're not—that you’re not—”

“No,” Bohun said, shaking his head. “No, Jan, I—”

Then he stopped. Jan’s words sunk in. A second wave of shock hit, clearing the pain, leaving him dizzily aware that he teetered on the edge of something.

“You know I’m not _what?”_ he rasped, eyes fixed on Jan’s face.

Jan’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Not even a breath escaped him.

 _Please,_ Bohun’s heart said, and without thinking, he tugged on the ribbon in his hands—a pressure so light that Jan barely could have felt it.

But Jan’s eyes widened.

Then Bohun yanked hard, sending Jan stumbling forwards. Bohun caught him and pressed his lips to Jan’s.

Maybe it was alcohol that made the world spin like that. Bohun wasn’t sure.

Then Jan let out a soft groan and heaved Bohun off the table by main force, never letting their lips part. He pulled Bohun close, hands skimming over the lines of Bohun's body, kissing him until Bohun found himself whimpering with ugly, desperate little sounds that he was too drunk to be ashamed of.

“Jesus,” Jan said, breaking the kiss.

“I’m not upset,” Bohun told him, still clutching the ribbon in his hands. “About what you said.”

“Yeah,” Jan’s huff of laughter brushed warm across Bohun’s skin. “I sort of figured that bit out by myself.”

Jan’s thumb had come to rest in the tender hollow beneath Bohun’s jaw, and Bohun imagined his blood raced to meet that touch.

“I want you,” Bohun told him. “I love you. I love you so fucking much. You’re _beautiful_.”

“Oh my God,” Jan whispered, then bent his head, hiding his face against the shorter man’s shoulder. “Oh God, you’re so drunk.”

“So what?” Bohun demanded, angry that Jan should sound so… so… _alone_.

“God, Jurko, you're beyond drunk. You just danced on the goddam table!” Jan shook his head. “I can’t do this. Not like this. In the morning you won’t even want to look at me, and I—”

“No, no!” It was all going wrong again. Why did it always go wrong? “Jan, I want to!”

“Jurko, I’m so sorry, I really am,” Jan said gently, with such sorrow in his voice that Bohun could not have understood its cause until Jan pushed him away. Bohun tried to follow, tried to use that _stupid_ goddam ribbon to pull him back, but Jan blocked him with a strong forearm across Bohun’s chest.

“I’m crazy about you,” Jan implored, “you have to know that, but please—”

Bohun staggered. _Crazy about me?_

”— _please_ don’t make me your one night of—”

“Carnations!” Bohun said. “You sent me red carnations!”

Jan looked like he thought that either or both of them were going mad.

“They were the red ones!” Bohun clarified.

“Jurko, you can’t really be—”

“‘My heart aches for you’. That’s red carnations. That’s what they mean! I looked it up.”

Jan’s face had gone blank.

“And violets! The blue ones: ‘faithfulness’, and ‘I’ll always be there.’”

“You—you looked up—”

“Daffodils! I knew those, too! They mean ‘you’re the only one. They mean ‘the sun shines when I’m with you.’”

Jan’s restraining arm had dropped, yet somehow Bohun could not bridge the handsbreath space between them.

“Today you gave me mistletoe,” Bohun said, pleading.

“I know,” Jan said softly.

“It means ‘kiss me.’”

Slowly, Jan raised a hand to Bohun's cheek. Bohun shivered as Jan’s fingers traced up along the line of his jaw, ghosting over his cheek, burying deep in his hair.

“Do you want me to?” Jan asked.

Had anyone’s eyes ever been so beautiful?

_Carmel. Amber. Autumn and cinnamon, with dark earth underneath._

“I love you,” Bohun sighed, leaning his head against Jan’s hand. The confession had lain so long buried that it now seemed he could say nothing else: “I love you.”

This time Jan kissed him, so slow and tender that Bohun shuddered under Jan’s touch. God knew he didn’t want to rush but, without the headlong chaos with which he usually hurled himself into things like this, Bohun could hear the voices screaming at him, telling him that this had to stop, that he had to _stop._

But then he felt Jan’s arm firm around his waist, and nothing had ever been so simple as letting his head tilt back, letting the ribbon slip from his hands, and putting his arms around Jan’s waist. That was all. There was nothing to fight. Bohun pulled him closer, Jan made a soft sound of contentment that gently broke Bohun’s heart. And he was happy, as effortlessly as breathing.

Carefully, deliberately, Jan cradled Bohun’s face in his hands, looking with wonder into his eyes.

“I can’t believe you looked up the flowers.” Then he smiled. _That perfect, beautiful smile._ “You really weren’t supposed to look up the flowers. Jesus, I feel like such a dork.”

“I didn’t think… I didn’t think you really meant it,” Bohun confessed. Because how could Jan have meant it? It still didn’t seem real. None of this felt real.

“Why on earth would you think that?”

“I dunno,” Bohun tried to summon some remnant of his usual bravura. “I just figured you wouldn’t mean it.”

“Jurko,” Jan chided, “have you seen yourself in a mirror? Do you know how goddam beautiful you are?”

Bohun swallowed, skin suddenly too thin; he was bruising under the other man’s touch.

But no, this was _Jan._ Jan, smiling at him, and his hands were gentle.

“Have you seen the way you look when you laugh? That expression you get before you’re about to do something crazy?” Jan asked, kissing his cheek. “Do you know what it’s like, hearing you sing, when you… Hell, you do this thing where you close your eyes and it’s like you forget there’s anyone else in the room, and it ought to be cheesy, but when you do it, I—”

_It doesn't hurt. Why did I ever think it would hurt?_

“But I couldn’t forget,” Bohun interrupted. “I couldn’t forget you’re there. Never. You’re the only thing that matters.”

“God,” Jan said, a little unsteadily. “You can’t just say shit like that.”

“Why?” It seemed so strange that Jan didn’t know. “When you’re here… it’s like I don’t even have a chance. Not that I’d want one! Never! But it’s like— _fuck_ —you make I feel like I could close my eyes and I’d be able to find you in the dark.” Carefully, reverently, he kissed the bare sliver of skin above Jan’s collar. “Like the daffodils: like you’re the sun.”

Jan did not reply, but Bohun felt Jan lean his head gently against his own.

It was too much to feel all at once, and he could still hardly believe it. So Bohun pulled Jan as close as he could, holding him tight so that the reality might be felt in blood and bone.

“Jurko, do you have any idea…” He trailed off with a shaking breath, and only hugged him back. But then, speaking so close that his breath tickled Bohun’s neck, Bohun heard him sigh: “God, I love you so much.”

_Oh._

Some choir was singing _“Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle”_ on the radio, and Bohun didn’t know the words but there was such tender hope in that music that it made his heart ache.

“I love you, too,” Bohun told him, and if his voice broke on the last word, he didn’t care.

Jan held him, seeming not to want anything from Bohun but to have him there.

They stood together, each finding peace in the other.

“Hey,” Jan said, leaning back, his arms still around Bohun’s shoulders. “Look, I still need to finish a few of these, but after that, do you maybe want to come over to my place?”

Then, seeing Bohun’s expression, he quickly added: “Not to _do_ anything. Not tonight. It’s too late and we’re too drunk, and I don’t want to rush. But”—he brushed Bohun’s hair back with a gentle hand—“would you want to come over?”

Bohun had one last, sharp moment where he stood alone. In that instant of wild clarity he felt he could see it all: all the pain that had come before, all the mistakes he’d made, and all that might come after. Then present joy crashed over him like a wave, and he knew only that he was drunk and happy, and that he could even begin to dream that there might be miracles in this world. Not for him; miracles didn’t happen for him. But if somehow this was something that _Jan_ wanted, then maybe— _maybe_ —Jurko was part of some good thing intended for the man he loved. And if that was so, that could be Bohun’s miracle, too.

“Yeah,” Bohun said, looking into Jan’s smiling eyes. “Yeah, that sounds good.”


End file.
